AngryNord wrote: »

Topic title: "I went on an archeology trip on my hard drive"

I.e. - old screenshots he likely took himself from the early betas

rajaniemiorama_ESO wrote: »

@Attorneyatlawl
Where these screenshots or files?
If they are files where did you find them?

It was said in the OP, but just to make it clearly stated ...

"Sure did take a lot of digging... but with manual frame-stepping and analysis"

Combine with the content of the pictures and you can infer where they're from: off-screen videos.

Psychobunni wrote: »

DarioZ wrote: »

Wouldn't play such a game, there are loads of more interesting "unimmersive" mmos out there. Thanks for the archeology and could never be enough happy for the actual situation vs that in your screens.

Thanks for sharing!

What is so hard for people to grasp about toggles? It's mind boggling to me the lack of understanding of an on/off switch and how it works.

Furthermore, why do players want to turn other players away from the game or make their play miserable when it can be a choice? Is it like a secret desire to make ESO fail?

Could any nay sayer (PC) give one solid example of how another player having options in their UI that they themselves chose not to use would somehow ruin their game? Because hello, players are already using addons to have that info, so your game is already ruined by your own account....why are you playing a ruined game?

The main opposing argument in the aforementioned beta threads was that if these elements were introduced into the game, even as a toggle, that they would feel inclined to use them because they give some sort of advantage.

As in, knowing the exact number of your remaining magicka points might mean you're inherently better off in a fight than someone simply looking at their magicka bar. Or that seeing a number pop up on a hit might mean the difference between a win and a loss in a PvP battle. Its all pretty much ***, really.

Carde wrote: »

Psychobunni wrote: »

DarioZ wrote: »

Wouldn't play such a game, there are loads of more interesting "unimmersive" mmos out there. Thanks for the archeology and could never be enough happy for the actual situation vs that in your screens.

Thanks for sharing!

What is so hard for people to grasp about toggles? It's mind boggling to me the lack of understanding of an on/off switch and how it works.

Furthermore, why do players want to turn other players away from the game or make their play miserable when it can be a choice? Is it like a secret desire to make ESO fail?

Could any nay sayer (PC) give one solid example of how another player having options in their UI that they themselves chose not to use would somehow ruin their game? Because hello, players are already using addons to have that info, so your game is already ruined by your own account....why are you playing a ruined game?

The main opposing argument in the aforementioned beta threads was that if these elements were introduced into the game, even as a toggle, that they would feel inclined to use them because they give some sort of advantage.

As in, knowing the exact number of your remaining magicka points might mean you're inherently better off in a fight than someone simply looking at their magicka bar. Or that seeing a number pop up on a hit might mean the difference between a win and a loss in a PvP battle. Its all pretty much ***, really.

Wow, that's pretty much a moot point now though, seeing as there are add-ons that allow you to do that any ways and people already feel they have to have them in order to feel competitive in PVP so that whole argument is really just an excuse.

They really should go back and put the BETA UI options into the game now.

Nebthet78 wrote: »

Carde wrote: »

Psychobunni wrote: »

DarioZ wrote: »

Wouldn't play such a game, there are loads of more interesting "unimmersive" mmos out there. Thanks for the archeology and could never be enough happy for the actual situation vs that in your screens.

Thanks for sharing!

What is so hard for people to grasp about toggles? It's mind boggling to me the lack of understanding of an on/off switch and how it works.

Furthermore, why do players want to turn other players away from the game or make their play miserable when it can be a choice? Is it like a secret desire to make ESO fail?

Could any nay sayer (PC) give one solid example of how another player having options in their UI that they themselves chose not to use would somehow ruin their game? Because hello, players are already using addons to have that info, so your game is already ruined by your own account....why are you playing a ruined game?

The main opposing argument in the aforementioned beta threads was that if these elements were introduced into the game, even as a toggle, that they would feel inclined to use them because they give some sort of advantage.

As in, knowing the exact number of your remaining magicka points might mean you're inherently better off in a fight than someone simply looking at their magicka bar. Or that seeing a number pop up on a hit might mean the difference between a win and a loss in a PvP battle. Its all pretty much ***, really.

Wow, that's pretty much a moot point now though, seeing as there are add-ons that allow you to do that any ways and people already feel they have to have them in order to feel competitive in PVP so that whole argument is really just an excuse.

They really should go back and put the BETA UI options into the game now.

They absolutely need to, in my opinion (though I think one could make an objective argument proving it, basically, in any case). Better late than never... these missing options have been a thorn in the side for many long-time players all the way through now. All of the best content, graphics, and sound in forthcoming downloadable content packs (DLC) that ZOS wants us to buy, aren't going to matter if they're brought down by the basics.

Stikato wrote: »

Wow. What a post. I remember accessing that weirdly different (and awesome) map in The Rift, but I have never actually seen the functional nameplates and minimap. Thank you so much for posting these.

As others have said, management makes some decisions here that continue to baffle me. Undoubtedly, there are highly talented people working on ESO. And although there are several elements of the game--animation, movement, feel of combat, graphics, sound--that are top notch, the larger design decisions in the past 2 years have largely been failures.

Unfortunately, the focus of this game, at some point, became a short-term cash-in on the popularity of Skyrim. I can't see how any other analysis holds true to all of the facts.

The irony is, with better decisions, ESO could have made 10x what is going to make in its current form.

It could have been, and even all this time later, they shouldn't neglect to re-add/enable these options. I don't think, as you assert, that the development history reasonably shows anything else, however as a company seeking to (as for-profit corporations are created for) make money, they need to provide these features again to help sell their game and future additions. The launch through present has undoubtedly been one of the rockiest ones of any MMORPG to date, but recovery isn't out of the question, as old-timers in/from Final Fantasy 14 can probably attest to. Show us you care about the health of your game and the players' requests, Zenimax... it's your product. Sell us it, and perhaps some people will take the same initiative by talking about more than complaints with the game, here and on their own fansites/gaming sites/forums.

Gandrhulf_Harbard wrote: »

Cry_Wolfe wrote: »

[snip]

^ This.

As a general rule how many long term MMO players can name just two MMORPGs that have been improved / saved by listening just to bean-counters?

How many have been ruined by such?

All The Best

Could not agree more if I tried.

@ZOS_AlanG / @ZOS_JessicaFolsom / @ZOS_GinaBruno/ @ZOS_BrianWheeler /@ZOS_ANYONE!!!!!! Please re enable these.

[edited to remove quote]

Elloa wrote: »

The mini map was totally awfull in the alpha.
I really made you feel stuck in a little zone instead of making you feel the grandeur of the world.
I'm also very happy to not have nameplate, though I'd not mind them enabled in the game with the option of ticking them off.

A lot of decisions they have taken was the result of players behaviour annalysis. They discovered than mini map, quest tracker and all that sort of things you have in other classical MMO was encouraging players to go straight to the goal instead of encouraging them to roam arround, explore and have the feels of adventure.
The zones of ESO are quite small; Or they are a lot smaller than what they looks like. Zones are actually build in a smart way to make you believe than the world is big, while in fact it's not.
Those features that were allowing players to be "more efficient" was making the world feel smaller, and not enough "Elder Scrolls" like. A LOT of players felt betrayed and gave their feedback.
So I think that Zenimax toke the right decision. It was more important to give a good feel of "Elder Scrolls" and sacrifice efficiency to save this feels of adventure and exploration within the limitation of what they could build. For the players that do not give a crap about that feel, there is the possibility to add addons.

Thats the best PR ive ever seen made! IF they want the zones to feel big how about actually making them big? Addons suck..... tons of framerate issues, crashes, and all that come from them and they arent built in to the game like a real feature is. Besides why take OUT options? Answer that. How does it hurt you for ME to have the builtin minimap on my screen? Youre trying to force us to play YOUR way. That is wrong. Just like them taking settings and options out.

Honestly I think it all comes down to the game is running on the Hero engine. It probably cant handle things like the beta UI or chat bubbles or cloaks ect... IF thats the case this game will never get better.

Smiteye wrote: »

Elloa wrote: »

The mini map was totally awfull in the alpha.
I really made you feel stuck in a little zone instead of making you feel the grandeur of the world.
I'm also very happy to not have nameplate, though I'd not mind them enabled in the game with the option of ticking them off.

A lot of decisions they have taken was the result of players behaviour annalysis. They discovered than mini map, quest tracker and all that sort of things you have in other classical MMO was encouraging players to go straight to the goal instead of encouraging them to roam arround, explore and have the feels of adventure.
The zones of ESO are quite small; Or they are a lot smaller than what they looks like. Zones are actually build in a smart way to make you believe than the world is big, while in fact it's not.
Those features that were allowing players to be "more efficient" was making the world feel smaller, and not enough "Elder Scrolls" like. A LOT of players felt betrayed and gave their feedback.
So I think that Zenimax toke the right decision. It was more important to give a good feel of "Elder Scrolls" and sacrifice efficiency to save this feels of adventure and exploration within the limitation of what they could build. For the players that do not give a crap about that feel, there is the possibility to add addons.

Thats the best PR ive ever seen made! IF they want the zones to feel big how about actually making them big? Addons suck..... tons of framerate issues, crashes, and all that come from them and they arent built in to the game like a real feature is. Besides why take OUT options? Answer that. How does it hurt you for ME to have the builtin minimap on my screen? Youre trying to force us to play YOUR way. That is wrong. Just like them taking settings and options out.

Server stress. We already see server stress in Cyrodiil and that is only 1/4 of the size of all available Tamriel with at least half of the population. Not to mention the fact that factions are locked.

Elloa wrote: »

The mini map was totally awfull in the alpha.
I really made you feel stuck in a little zone instead of making you feel the grandeur of the world.
I'm also very happy to not have nameplate, though I'd not mind them enabled in the game with the option of ticking them off.

A lot of decisions they have taken was the result of players behaviour annalysis. They discovered than mini map, quest tracker and all that sort of things you have in other classical MMO was encouraging players to go straight to the goal instead of encouraging them to roam arround, explore and have the feels of adventure.
The zones of ESO are quite small; Or they are a lot smaller than what they looks like. Zones are actually build in a smart way to make you believe than the world is big, while in fact it's not.
Those features that were allowing players to be "more efficient" was making the world feel smaller, and not enough "Elder Scrolls" like. A LOT of players felt betrayed and gave their feedback.
So I think that Zenimax toke the right decision. It was more important to give a good feel of "Elder Scrolls" and sacrifice efficiency to save this feels of adventure and exploration within the limitation of what they could build. For the players that do not give a crap about that feel, there is the possibility to add addons.

This completely makes sense from a company's point of view and I think it's not far from the truth... well said.

It's the difficulty of making a MMO and RPG at the same time... 2 types of players you have to bring in the game if you want the largest audience (=$). But this game was supposed to be an MMO first and they should have made it an MMO with MMO features. No matter what. They have elder scrolls series for single player RPG games. ESO should have been an MMO game. Mixing categories didn't do much good.

To @Smiteye @Lava_Croft @Attorneyatlawl

1. Why can't Zenimax make bigger zones? I'm not a develloper but I suppose it's related to technical issue, performance, budget and so on. They can't make bigger zone, but need to make the players believe that the zones are bigger. So they use tricks. Tricks in the world building (like building the relief of the zone like a labyrinth so you have to run more to get to a certain point, making you lose your sense of pathfinding, and have the feel than the zone is actually bigger) and tricks in the interface to encourage players to be lost, explore, and have a feel of freedom and explorations, and adventure requiered and requested as ESO is a Elder Scrolls Game


2. May you disagree or agree with my post it doesn't matter. Because I didn't shared an opinion (or well I shared one in teh end). I MOSTLY shared some fact that were discussed with devellopers and other players during the alpha when the devellopers actually decided to make some changes. This is just what had been discussed back then.


3. At the beggining of ESO testing, lots of players reproached ESO to be too much like "WOW" in Tamriel; devellopers worked hard to get away from this feel and to stay more loyal to the Elder Scrolls franchise. You always had a part of the players that wanted more interface, and a part of players that wanted more "Skyrim feel". So you always had a discussion, argumentation, almost a fight between two sort of players. Today it may feel that there is only players that want more interface. I can assure you that it's untrue. Lots of players enjoy the minimalistic UI and fully embrace it. Although those players are usually not haging out on forums but just playing the game.


4. Zenimax is not taking their decisions out of their a** They have done a huge work of annalysing players behaviour, that included in game observations and huge surveys at the end of each testing sessions. So if they have taken those decision it's probably because they though it was the right ones.
Have they be wrong? Maybe, maybe not. It's hard to say, but I honnestly do not think than the main problem the game knew at release was interface releated.

5. [snip]

What I think is that a lot of player are unable of coming into a game with a fresh mind open to new experience and accept the experience as it is proposed. People tent to hold on their old habits and uses and therefor have a lot of difficulties to accept change and difference.

Regarding ESO and their interface, a lot of players would miss out the opportunity to experiment something different, a immersive game, a beautiful world. During the alpha, when I was testing I was strongly against ESO implementing a more obstrusive interface that would sort off encourage players to keep their habits of old MMOS and would be detrimental to the overal experience of the game for all players.( Because by playing a certain way, players encourage others to follow their way.)
BUT, after one year my opinion have changed. On PC, players have access to addons and lot of players are already installing all the "requiered" addons. Some guilds are already enforcing their players to use certain addons. Therefor, it would not change much if Zenimax was adding some more options to their interface, disabled by default. In that way, players would be able to experiment the game with the most Elder Scrolls feel possible while trying the game for the first time, and would be able to easily change some of their interface if they feel like they needed something else without being bothered by downloading external addons. I'd not be against something like that.

Myself I play without addons, and will continue to do so, and there would be more options to the user interface implemented in the game, I'd play just the same, with the smallest UI possible.

A lot of players believe that it's needed to have addons to play well. i'm telling you this: it may be easier, but it's not needed. A good player is a good player, and do not need addon to be good. So if anyone make you belief that addons are requiered to be good, you can just tell them to [snip] off. It's not true. Just play the way you prefer.

[edited for profanity bypass]

rajaniemiorama_ESO wrote: »

Smiteye wrote: »

Elloa wrote: »

The mini map was totally awfull in the alpha.
I really made you feel stuck in a little zone instead of making you feel the grandeur of the world.
I'm also very happy to not have nameplate, though I'd not mind them enabled in the game with the option of ticking them off.

A lot of decisions they have taken was the result of players behaviour annalysis. They discovered than mini map, quest tracker and all that sort of things you have in other classical MMO was encouraging players to go straight to the goal instead of encouraging them to roam arround, explore and have the feels of adventure.
The zones of ESO are quite small; Or they are a lot smaller than what they looks like. Zones are actually build in a smart way to make you believe than the world is big, while in fact it's not.
Those features that were allowing players to be "more efficient" was making the world feel smaller, and not enough "Elder Scrolls" like. A LOT of players felt betrayed and gave their feedback.
So I think that Zenimax toke the right decision. It was more important to give a good feel of "Elder Scrolls" and sacrifice efficiency to save this feels of adventure and exploration within the limitation of what they could build. For the players that do not give a crap about that feel, there is the possibility to add addons.

Thats the best PR ive ever seen made! IF they want the zones to feel big how about actually making them big? Addons suck..... tons of framerate issues, crashes, and all that come from them and they arent built in to the game like a real feature is. Besides why take OUT options? Answer that. How does it hurt you for ME to have the builtin minimap on my screen? Youre trying to force us to play YOUR way. That is wrong. Just like them taking settings and options out.

Server stress. We already see server stress in Cyrodiil and that is only 1/4 of the size of all available Tamriel with at least half of the population. Not to mention the fact that factions are locked.

How exactly would a minimap contribute to server stress? What information would be sent from a server to support minimap that isn't being transmitted already? Most of what's displayed is static.

Lava_Croft wrote: »

@Elloa The problem is the lack of choice. One could use the GUI as shown in @Attorneyatlawl's screenshots as long they provided the option to turn off interface elements that Skyrim players don't like. Heck, they could even have provided seperate presets like 'WoW-nerd' or 'Skyrim-nerd'. But, ZOS chose to go with a near useless UI, which not only appealed to all the Skyrim players but also saved them development time and therefore money.

And cost them long term money....

I have to say I'm kind of ambivalent about all these "improvements". While I wouldn't complain if any or all of them were added (as long as they were toggleable options…), I find them all to be fluff additions, not anything significant. They're probably more useful to add for the console players who can't have add ons, which is the only reason I think there might be any chance of seeing any of these done. (Otherwise, I'd say your chances of seeing any of these changes were slim to none…)

If you want to complain about a UI design which would make a *real* improvement, lets look at that *AWFUL* radial quick slot menu and most especially the non-changable overlaid double-purpose for the Q button -- selecting quick slot and triggering it. I've been playing this game now since beta, and still hate that particular UI with a passion. (And it's *not* something that can actually be fixed with an add-on…)

For those of you complaining that they made the UI more Skyrim-like, though, I urge you to go back and actually play Skyrim. I found the UI there to be *so* terminally consolized, that despite several attempts, I couldn't finish the game. Even SkyUI wasn't enough to rescue the game for me. ESO, even in it's current form is several orders of magnitude better in comparison.

stevenbennett_ESO wrote: »

I have to say I'm kind of ambivalent about all these "improvements". While I wouldn't complain if any or all of them were added (as long as they were toggleable options…), I find them all to be fluff additions, not anything significant. They're probably more useful to add for the console players who can't have add ons, which is the only reason I think there might be any chance of seeing any of these done. (Otherwise, I'd say your chances of seeing any of these changes were slim to none…)

If you want to complain about a UI design which would make a *real* improvement, lets look at that *AWFUL* radial quick slot menu and most especially the non-changable overlaid double-purpose for the Q button -- selecting quick slot and triggering it. I've been playing this game now since beta, and still hate that particular UI with a passion. (And it's *not* something that can actually be fixed with an add-on…)

For those of you complaining that they made the UI more Skyrim-like, though, I urge you to go back and actually play Skyrim. I found the UI there to be *so* terminally consolized, that despite several attempts, I couldn't finish the game. Even SkyUI wasn't enough to rescue the game for me. ESO, even in it's current form is several orders of magnitude better in comparison.

actually therre is a mod for the garbage radial bar
http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info258-GreymindQuickSlotBar.html

and modified integrations into bigger ui mods like AUI, LUI etc...

The deathspam wasn't that bad, either. The only obnoxious part was the Cyrodiil messaging for objectives/keeps flipping. Talk about some seriously blinding spam.