E3: Big announements from ESO today?

JD2013 · June 2015

The hate train is getting very tiresome now.

Yes, we need new content. Yes, they could have shown more at E3, but seeing these forums .... you would have thought ZOS had destroyed the world or something.

Gandrhulf_Harbard · June 2015

@JD2013 how much of what they showed at last years E3 has been released?

Oh, next to none, because they showed, more or less, the same video this time around.

So why should we trust them this time.

They haven't destroyed the world - they've destroyed what trust there was left between them and the playing community.

Not a good place at all for a game company to be in.

All The Best

grimsfield · June 2015

JD2013 wrote: »

The hate train is getting very tiresome now.

Yes, we need new content. Yes, they could have shown more at E3, but seeing these forums .... you would have thought ZOS had destroyed the world or something.

If you've been on these forums since the beginning, you can remember a time when the hate wasn't so strong. But... the forums as they are now are a product of what the devs have delivered. Bad patch after bad patch combined with terrible design decisions and no communication between devs and players. Well this is the result and it didn't happen overnight. This is a product of over a years worth of broken promises, inability to properly take feedback, and missteps by the people making this game.

Attorneyatlawl · June 2015

Hawk269 wrote: »

Some the comments in here as cringe worthy. Many of you did not want to believe that ESO would be part of the press conference and even though it was a small portion, there was a presence for the game and it was mentioned many times. The fact that they say "THIS YEAR" seems to have not been heard by some of you.

I understand there has been a long wait, but it seems like they were waiting for this to talk about it and I am sure more details will emerge shortly. Again, this is GREAT news and I love that they were part of the conference when many here thought that they would not even mention ESO at the show.

They said "this year" in 2014 most of the year. The same thing has been said in 2015, and it's been crickets so far... not only would you have heard dates, at least as specific as a month which is already rarely done because of how vague it would be... but when a delay hit, you would have a lot of info pouring out about why, what they intend to do to get it out asap, and what improvements will be made in exchange. Instead we subscribed thinking we were getting Orsinium and the Imperial City, perhaps even Spellcrafting... and now the game's gone buy to play/free to play and we'll be asked to pay out of pocket for it after.

Pendrillion wrote: »

They really should change out the Creative Directors. I mean the top guys not the folks trying to get ESO working and trying to fix things with what they still have. I mean the top guys and also the Marketing guys. Come on... At least show a bit of excitement for your own product.

There are still folks who love the game. Like me. For example. But to see what is going on is really disheartening.

Gotta agree. The insistence of restricting play and interface options in a game designed gameplay wise around options (it's so immersive to not know who's next to me or that I ran by a guildie... or to respec morphs and champion points twice a night by hand manually because something as basic as a specialization manager isn't in the game... let's not even touch the deep combat system that is covered so thickly by lack of game info provided by the game or even hinted at, that many theorycrafters even don't notice with addons, making information an incredible edge for some of us who have figured it out through painstaking testing. It's also incredibly immersive to not know what the gold in my mail was for, too. And it truly makes the game SO much more enjoyable to have four fire attacks on an enemy I'm attacking with other people and have no indication of which blocked, expired, or was cleansed. The relentlessly buggy addon api is a joy to play whack a mole with updating addons for, too! And boy oh boy, the fifteenth rerun of the unskippable and mandatory quest roleplay voice acting is SO AWESOME to have to see again and again!

As you could probably tell... no, it's really not. I long have felt that ZOS has some huge talent internally, but management level decisions hold them back and their product as a result.

JD2013 · June 2015

I honest to goodness wonder if I'm playing the same game as some of the people here.

Okay, I have been playibg games for a long time now. Usually I can get bored of a game pretty fast. But I've been playing this since January 2014 and I'm still not bored of the game. I have periods where I do just log in and feed my mount and log out again, but I also have periods of huge Cyrodiil battles (mostly lag free) RP sessions, gathering mats or just fishing.

I have seen things broken. I have seen things fixed. I have seen things broken again and then fixed again. ZOS have in fact listened to the community a lot. And answered. People just don't listen or don't hear what they want to hear.

Now, given the fact that they've been working on console release for a while, and it's no secret that we would like new content. I want Imperial City and more, but creating a toxic environment on the forums won't bring anything faster. Every time ZOS say anything, a crowd of people shout at them.

Now I'm in no way saying that the game has no problems, absolutely not. There's a list of things that they could do to make improvements and fixes and the such, but there's only so many of them to work on the game and so many hours in a day. If you hate this game as much as it seems that you do on these forums, then why do you stay? Why hijack every single thread and drown it in negativity? Why not cut your losses and play something you enjoy more? Life is too short to spend time with something that you have such distaste for, and trolling new forum members and calling them console peasants is not exactly conducive to a welcoming environment.

We are waiting. I know we are waiting. We have been waiting and waiting. In fact, PC players have needed the patience of a Saint sometimes. I am frustrated about things too. Hugely. Mainly with the potential that this game has not being fulfilled. But not once in this long have I ever found the game unplayable. Not once.

That's my two cents. Take it or leave it.

Iluvrien · June 2015

My apologies, beforehand, for what is likely to be a wall-of-text post...

JD2013 wrote: »

I honest to goodness wonder if I'm playing the same game as some of the people here.

Okay, I have been playibg(sic) games for a long time now. Usually I can get bored of a game pretty fast. But I've been playing this since January 2014 and I'm still not bored of the game. I have periods where I do just log in and feed my mount and log out again, but I also have periods of huge Cyrodiil battles (mostly lag free) RP sessions, gathering mats or just fishing.

Excellent, and good for you. Just for the record I still play almost every day and have done since early access (except during the period when my PC was being shipped from Europe to Japan) and have been subbed for the entirety of that time. The base game seem to be, if not perfect, acceptably functional in the majority of, non-PvP or competitive PvE, cases. I excluded PvP and cPvE because I have no contact with those and therefore cannot specify if they are in good working order or not.
This really has very little to do with why there is negativity on the forums though.

JD2013 wrote: »

I have seen things broken. I have seen things fixed. I have seen things broken again and then fixed again. ZOS have in fact listened to the community a lot. And answered. People just don't listen or don't hear what they want to hear.

Looking now at your point about fixing things. Yes, they have fixed things. And broken things (today’s provisioning crash bug is a good example) and the fixed them again. In each case, however, you have to ask which things? Have they fixed the things that had the highest impact on the community at large? Have they fixed things that were reported as having been issues during beta? The answer to those questions is “not always”, and in doing that they have set themselves up for criticism. Some of it is unwarranted, certainly, but not all. For example the version of Stormhold that my main inhabits still has a group of mercenaries in it due to a quest bug that occurred in the first few weeks of release that has, as far as I can see, never been fixed.

JD2013 wrote: »

Now, given the fact that they've been working on console release for a while, and it's no secret that we would like new content. I want Imperial City and more, but creating a toxic environment on the forums won't bring anything faster. Every time ZOS say anything, a crowd of people shout at them.

This situation should never have occurred. Console should have been given enough resources to release on time. If it wasn’t, then sufficient resources should have been made available to complete console development without impacting on the PC community. You do not keep one group of customers happy by dumping the advertised release schedule and telling them to wait 6 months so you can look after another group. That is why people shout at ZOS. Too many statements conveniently wiggled out of, too many missed expectations and certainly too little accountable communication.

Expecting the PC community to sit quietly by for that amount of time without complaint is, frankly, so unlikely as to be unbelievable. I will say it again, this situation should never have occurred and since it did then it is on ZOS to be patient with us. Not the other way around.

JD2013 wrote: »

Now I'm in no way saying that the game has no problems, absolutely not. There's a list of things that they could do to make improvements and fixes and the such, but there's only so many of them to work on the game and so many hours in a day. If you hate this game as much as it seems that you do on these forums, then why do you stay? Why hijack every single thread and drown it in negativity? Why not cut your losses and play something you enjoy more? Life is too short to spend time with something that you have such distaste for, and trolling new forum members and calling them console peasants is not exactly conducive to a welcoming environment.

You are conflating multiple issues here:

1) Fixing bugs.
2) Hating the game.
3) Forum responses to ZOS.
4) Forum responses to console players.

These are all different, if interrelated issues. I have already talked about (1) with regards to the prioritisation of bugs. Most people complaining about ZOS and its actions on the forum don’t, as in (2), hate the game. They hate the decisions that ZOS is making and the stance that it is taking because they like the game and want it to be better than it is. (3) is fairly obvious, if ZOS is annoying people then people will react in an annoyed fashion when they post. Especially when they post useless information or information about something they see as a symptom of the current problems (like more crown store mounts when what people are desperately waiting for is content news). (5) isn’t acceptable, the PC community shouldn’t be blaming consoles for ZOS’s decisions and should be as welcoming as they are able (though I wouldn’t blame them for feeling a little resentful). ZOS should have created a GD forum for the consoles that would also have helped with the feeling that we are being invaded

.

JD2013 wrote: »

We are waiting. I know we are waiting. We have been waiting and waiting. In fact, PC players have needed the patience of a Saint sometimes. I am frustrated about things too. Hugely. Mainly with the potential that this game has not being fulfilled. But not once in this long have I ever found the game unplayable. Not once.

For some of us, the patience is running out and cracks are starting to show.

TL;DR: I am not angry at the game. I love the game. I am angry at ZOS and their failure to deliver.

Attorneyatlawl · June 2015

Iluvrien wrote: »

My apologies, beforehand, for what is likely to be a wall-of-text post...

JD2013 wrote: »

I honest to goodness wonder if I'm playing the same game as some of the people here.

Okay, I have been playibg(sic) games for a long time now. Usually I can get bored of a game pretty fast. But I've been playing this since January 2014 and I'm still not bored of the game. I have periods where I do just log in and feed my mount and log out again, but I also have periods of huge Cyrodiil battles (mostly lag free) RP sessions, gathering mats or just fishing.

Excellent, and good for you. Just for the record I still play almost every day and have done since early access (except during the period when my PC was being shipped from Europe to Japan) and have been subbed for the entirety of that time. The base game seem to be, if not perfect, acceptably functional in the majority of, non-PvP or competitive PvE, cases. I excluded PvP and cPvE because I have no contact with those and therefore cannot specify if they are in good working order or not.
This really has very little to do with why there is negativity on the forums though.

JD2013 wrote: »

I have seen things broken. I have seen things fixed. I have seen things broken again and then fixed again. ZOS have in fact listened to the community a lot. And answered. People just don't listen or don't hear what they want to hear.

Looking now at your point about fixing things. Yes, they have fixed things. And broken things (today’s provisioning crash bug is a good example) and the fixed them again. In each case, however, you have to ask which things? Have they fixed the things that had the highest impact on the community at large? Have they fixed things that were reported as having been issues during beta? The answer to those questions is “not always”, and in doing that they have set themselves up for criticism. Some of it is unwarranted, certainly, but not all. For example the version of Stormhold that my main inhabits still has a group of mercenaries in it due to a quest bug that occurred in the first few weeks of release that has, as far as I can see, never been fixed.

JD2013 wrote: »

Now, given the fact that they've been working on console release for a while, and it's no secret that we would like new content. I want Imperial City and more, but creating a toxic environment on the forums won't bring anything faster. Every time ZOS say anything, a crowd of people shout at them.

This situation should never have occurred. Console should have been given enough resources to release on time. If it wasn’t, then sufficient resources should have been made available to complete console development without impacting on the PC community. You do not keep one group of customers happy by dumping the advertised release schedule and telling them to wait 6 months so you can look after another group. That is why people shout at ZOS. Too many statements conveniently wiggled out of, too many missed expectations and certainly too little accountable communication.

Expecting the PC community to sit quietly by for that amount of time without complaint is, frankly, so unlikely as to be unbelievable. I will say it again, this situation should never have occurred and since it did then it is on ZOS to be patient with us. Not the other way around.

JD2013 wrote: »

Now I'm in no way saying that the game has no problems, absolutely not. There's a list of things that they could do to make improvements and fixes and the such, but there's only so many of them to work on the game and so many hours in a day. If you hate this game as much as it seems that you do on these forums, then why do you stay? Why hijack every single thread and drown it in negativity? Why not cut your losses and play something you enjoy more? Life is too short to spend time with something that you have such distaste for, and trolling new forum members and calling them console peasants is not exactly conducive to a welcoming environment.

You are conflating multiple issues here:

1) Fixing bugs.
2) Hating the game.
3) Forum responses to ZOS.
4) Forum responses to console players.

These are all different, if interrelated issues. I have already talked about (1) with regards to the prioritisation of bugs. Most people complaining about ZOS and its actions on the forum don’t, as in (2), hate the game. They hate the decisions that ZOS is making and the stance that it is taking because they like the game and want it to be better than it is. (3) is fairly obvious, if ZOS is annoying people then people will react in an annoyed fashion when they post. Especially when they post useless information or information about something they see as a symptom of the current problems (like more crown store mounts when what people are desperately waiting for is content news). (5) isn’t acceptable, the PC community shouldn’t be blaming consoles for ZOS’s decisions and should be as welcoming as they are able (though I wouldn’t blame them for feeling a little resentful). ZOS should have created a GD forum for the consoles that would also have helped with the feeling that we are being invaded .

JD2013 wrote: »

We are waiting. I know we are waiting. We have been waiting and waiting. In fact, PC players have needed the patience of a Saint sometimes. I am frustrated about things too. Hugely. Mainly with the potential that this game has not being fulfilled. But not once in this long have I ever found the game unplayable. Not once.

For some of us, the patience is running out and cracks are starting to show.

TL;DR: I am not angry at the game. I love the game. I am angry at ZOS and their failure to deliver.

Last I checked, PC players also were the ones who put a few hundred bucks in during the first year, too. It's not like we're asking for charity

.

Gandrhulf_Harbard · June 2015

Iluvrien wrote: »

This situation should never have occurred. Console should have been given enough resources to release on time. If it wasn’t, then sufficient resources should have been made available to complete console development without impacting on the PC community. You do not keep one group of customers happy by dumping the advertised release schedule and telling them to wait 6 months so you can look after another group. That is why people shout at ZOS. Too many statements conveniently wiggled out of, too many missed expectations and certainly too little accountable communication.

Expecting the PC community to sit quietly by for that amount of time without complaint is, frankly, so unlikely as to be unbelievable. I will say it again, this situation should never have occurred and since it did then it is on ZOS to be patient with us. Not the other way around.

^ This.

I'm one of three employees and one apprentice who run a company with a 7 figure annual turnover. I am usually the one at the coal-face when things go wrong, dealing with customers face-to-face, by phone and the internet - resolving issues, making apologies and - when things go really bad - issuing refunds and compensation.

The key to all of that is communication with our customers, and more importantly as @Iluvrien says "accountable communication". That is my name in the open so the customers know who to go to if they are not 100% satisfied; that means not making promises I can't deliver or have no intention of delivering; that means keeping the customer informed - personally - at every step of the way; that means being as totally honest as is possible, even if doing so sometimes, in the short-term, may hurt the company image - because frank honesty will retain far more customers than vanity fed lies.

When the customer feels that they are the most important cog in the machine rather than "company image" or "bottom line" they know you are working for them, every second of every shift, and because of that "company image" and "bottom line" soon start taking care of themselves. Because loyal customers are a company's greatest asset, ever. But they will only show loyalty to the company if the company shows loyalty to them.

This seems to be a lesson that Zenimax and most other game companies have yet to learn.

As a final observation I'll say this: there are millions of successful companies out there without share-holders; there aren't any successful companies out there without customers. There's a simple lesson there on where a company's prime focus should be... ...always.

All The Best

AH93 · June 2015

Gandrhulf_Harbard wrote: »

Dahkoht wrote: »

A card game that won't compete with Hearthstone and will die out ,

A cash shop mount

A promise of content to come that was already promised before

/ golf clap

If this was meant to allay the fears that ESO Players currently have then they really do not understand the issues at all.

ESO/Zeni: I would seriously consider replacing whoever it is you have in the hot seat for ESO Marketing.

This was appalling. After months of being told "After Console ™" all we get is a reminder if an old promise you failed to keep already, a Gouge-Shop Mount and a *&^%$%^ Card Game.

Really?

This is it?

It's almost like you want ESO to fold so you can re-task the resources to Fallout 4.

Shocking failure to understand the real concerns of the people who pay your wages.

Be ashamed.

All The Best

This sums it up well.

Heromofo · June 2015

Davadin wrote: »

Alphashado wrote: »

They really need a new PR dept. I mean this was an opportunity to get the fans excited. An opportunity to reinstill some hope for veteran ESO players and to generate hype for potential new players. But once again, it was flat. So very flat. There was no sense of urgency. No sense of excitement. No sense of impending greatness.

ESO has SUCH potential. I think that's why so many people stick around. But this was hard to watch. It couldn't have been more dull, redundant or vague.

I just don't understand. A used car salesman could do a better job creating hype for ESO.

i agree with u but ur using the wrong example.

a used car salesman can make ANYTHING sounds excellent. that's too high of a standard.

i say a 6 yr old and a jug of lemonade down the street can do a better job creating a hype.

I think the Devs know this and didn't really have anything planned for E3 hence why they were not on stage, i would be ashamed as well lol.

Still the console version is unreal so gotta give them that.

acolyte2475b14_ESO · June 2015

At this point this thread is at 7 pages with almost 10,000 views. It's had no dev activity. ZOS has decided to go with a more blunt force approch to community management and release updates and content on their own terms with little to no engagement with the community.

And it will work, somewhat. Many people will uninstall and never look back before then. But many that complained loudly will just patch the client and play at some point in the future. Someone once told me " sometimes good customer services comes from having good customers." Good customers are patient and don't complain and ask a lot of questions. Which honestly are the majority of most people in general. Times like this can be a good "weeding out" of those that complain much but spend little.

The fact is they really don't have to do anything, thus the silence. ESO will not utterly fail, but it also won't utterly succeed either. Someone once asked me, "why isn't In an Out burgers everywhere? Everyone loves them! They could be bigger then McDonald's!" My answer. Maybe they don't want to be.

Not every mmo wants to be the next wow. Not every company wants to be huge. This game will settle into a dedicated player base and I think ZOS is cool with that.

Personally my wife and I will be back in the game once we can pick up a controller on the PC and play. Can't wait for that patch day.