No Sense of Stable/Permanent Community

ForestGuard · April 2016

Why do you think that is?

-Megaserver / Phasing
--If you're phased with the same people continuously you barely notice. I have never once recognized the names of people sitting around Elden Root from dungeons, questing, etc. Where as I've continuously done so in SW:TOR, it's a nice feeling to know that these people you're playing with aren't just disappearing after you interact with them the first time.

-Too Many Zones/Spread Between Three Factions/VR RANKS
--VR Ranks just-... They can't go away fast enough. They have done so much damage to this game and it's community. Level 50 needed to be the cap and it needed to allow you to instantly enter Craglorn as the "end game zone" with clearly marked and labeled dailies, solo and group.

-Only 5 Guilds/Guild Slots Needed for Trading Guilds (BECAUSE NO HALF-DECENT MARKET/AUCTION SYSTEM)'
--Now, some games only let you join one guild per -character-. The merits of being in 5 guilds at all times can't be ignored, but at the same time there are obvious drawbacks. Mainly to do with guilds having many different necessary uses... For us roleplayers we have our phasing/hub guilds (because of the first issue I spoke on)... It's -supposed- to make sure we're all phased and can find each other roleplaying in cities / the wild /etc. Sometimes it works, sometimes it seems like it just doesn't, yet it still takes up 1-3 (sometimes more) guilds slots. (The Dominion Accord, Covenant Collective and Ebonheart Roleplay (we tried making it one hub guild, but the 500 member cap was easily reached)-... Then you have some splinters like Children of Skyrim and Morrowinds.) Just trying to get and stay connected with roleplayers can fill up our guild slots, leaving us without a PvP guild, a PvE guild, trading guilds, actual story-focused roleplay guilds, etc.

-No Custom Chat Channels
--SWTOR allows you create custom chat channels for everything from an Out of Character chat for RPers to a secret PvP chat for planning strategies, to an LGBT-oriented discussion to a persistent "Trade Chat" where people can say what they're searching (in agony) for at the dozens of poorly stocked Guild Stores.

-Capitol Cities not Given Enough Effort
--Elden Root is beautiful-... on the outside. On the inside it is horribly small and terribly designed. The main level is filled with crafting stations while said stations would, in any other city, be found in special crafting areas... A huge part of this is that Elden Root's two main wings were given to the Mage's and Fighter's Guilds... Terrible decision. The Guilds do not need that much space in an already tiny city.
--The khajiit embassy not having been built for story reasons is understandable, except-... Even Silvenar has a relatively well done khajiiti and altmeri "enclave". There is absolutely no reason for the khajiit to not have a visible presence inside Elden Root. A capitol city of an alliance should reflect all the races within it and draw people in rather than pushing them away to places like Rawl'kha.

...There's a lot more than that, but I needed to say it.

Magdalina · April 2016

Um...why don't you feel like you have a stable community? I'm EP and I run into people from my (full) friendlist in Mournhold all the time. When they're not in Mournhold, they're usually in Cyrodiil(where I also run into them, either as friend or enemy, all the time; in fact in Cyrodiil I do this TOO much, every once in a while I'll see a big group, tab target one...oops, that's my friend, moving on...tab target another...oops, another friend...tab target #3.. ...nvm this group I'm just gonna leave XD) or some dungeon/Trial. Granted DC and AD hang out in different places(AD Rawl x____x) but still.

Far as "stable" goes, lots of people leave because of all the issues the game has and that's sad. Some of those people have become friends to me enough to keep in touch over Skype but that's beside the point. I've never felt people "disappear after you first interact with them" though. Even outside my friendlist, if you go to Cyrodiil frequently, you will be recognizing half of the names in zchat. If you turn on zchat in Mournhold, every once in a while there'll be familiar names there too, etc.

Sometimes when I group up for a Trial because a friend asked me to I recognize half of the people there, not so much because it's a guild run but because I guess I revolve around certain circle of fairly competent but not overly elitist and hardcore players which makes us all that much more likely to run into each other. Heck if anything I feel like Tamriel's a super small world judging by how often I run into people I know

ContraTempo · April 2016

A lot of the connection here happens through guilds and friend lists. Find at least one guild where you fit and enjoy the company. That is the basic building block of the social structure for ESO.

As for the chat channels, guilds have their main one plus the option to create others. Groups have a group chat /p. You can whisper with friends. What else you would do with custom chat?

Ahzek · April 2016

I know the parts of the "sub"community I belong to. Small scale/ solo + duels PvP, helps that its almost dead due to how the game is going, but i recognize many names running around in cyro nonetheless.

7788b14_ESO · April 2016

I belonged to four guilds and recently came back for the cake. All those guilds are empty. Two were pretty large. People were staying waiting for the latest thing to make everything better but each new thing came with a return of the old problems. Now people are waiting for the DB but history says that update will break some things.

anitajoneb17_ESO · April 2016

7788b14_ESO wrote: »

I belonged to four guilds and recently came back for the cake. All those guilds are empty. Two were pretty large.

They might just as well have left those guilds because of guild drama, and joined or created other guilds. Says nothing about people leaving the game.

tinythinker · April 2016

Well, I know there are answers here to how/why people have found community in ESO, but nonetheless the OP makes good points. Increasing the ways people can feel connected and at home will *always* be a great idea in any MMO. It keeps people logging in even if there is no new content. Sometimes people log in to just to feel like they are at their home away from home and chat with familiar names.

Totalitarian · April 2016

ForestGuard wrote: »

If you're phased with the same people continuously you barely notice. I have never once recognized the names of people sitting around Elden Root from dungeons, questing, etc.

I guess it's weird that I recognize everyone that I run dungeons/pvp around

Elsonso · April 2016

ForestGuard wrote: »

-Megaserver / Phasing
--If you're phased with the same people continuously you barely notice. I have never once recognized the names of people sitting around Elden Root from dungeons, questing, etc. Where as I've continuously done so in SW:TOR, it's a nice feeling to know that these people you're playing with aren't just disappearing after you interact with them the first time.

The megaserver groups you with people who you are associated with, if you have associations. You can expect to see people from your guilds around you. I am constantly seeing guild mates in towns and cities.

One problem with recognition is that you have to put the reticule over them to see who they are. Without nameplates, you are seeing one person at a time. If they ever implement nameplates, you will see a lot more people you know.

ForestGuard · April 2016

That would be nice yeah, nameplates, guild tags (being able to rep one at a time maybe).